SPOTLIGHT NUMBER THREE: MEET CRISTINA, The Blind Soprano
Yet another fabulous contributor to Tactile Rainbows, The Braille Cave's First Open Mic Night!
Here is Cristina singing "Glitter And Be Gay." Check her out on YouTube under The Blind SopranoGreetings and Salutations Once Again, Readers!
Here we go, Writer Spotlight Number Three for Tactile Rainbows, my open mic night! Introducing Cristina Jones. News flash, Cristina does not identify as a writer, although I have read her words and she can, in fact, write, contrary to her belief. But she won't be writing a piece for open mic night. She will be closing the night with a beautiful song. She's an opera singer, and her soul is expressed through her absolutely marvelous and incredible music. Every time I hear Cristina sing, I kind of think that the world stops for a minute. Her voice fills all the lonely, empty places and brings out ALL of the emotions—joy, sadness, yearning, hilarity, ... everything. One could argue that this is because I've known her as long as I have ... um, since age 7 or so? Maybe? It doesn't matter. At that point she thought I hated her and I thought she hated me. This unhatred culminated in my over protective Mama Bear telling Cristina "Don't call this house again," based solely on the misinformation that she hated me. I don't remember why we thought we hated each other, but clearly, it's VERY important, as here we are, umpteen years later, still doing life and screeching with laughter together, as you do.
We joke that we're platonic soul mates. Even though she's been around since before I can consciously remember, she's been my sister since around age 14, when she came to my place for a sleepover and jammed out to NSYNC on my karaoke machine. That pretty much sums us up, actually: swapping and singing music together, just hanging out, talking, laughing, eating ... all the finer things in life.
Full disclosure, because you know, it pays to be honest, she's also a useless waste of space who breaks all of our household appliances and becomes a tornadic hurricane of EPIC proportions whenever performance or audition season rolls around, but hey, it would be boring if she was perfect, right? And she DOES make some pretty amazing Japanese food, so I guess we'll keep her around.
To be clear, I don't think that Cristina's magic is just because I know and love her so well. Her gift of bringing words and music to life is universal. She can take you on epic sojourns, and I never, EVER know where I'll end up when I'm listening to her sing.
Just this past March, Cristina was in a micro opera with One Ounce Opera here in Austin called "I Am Worth Nothing," depicting the struggle of an indigenous woman who had been abused. Though Cristina is Japanese Welsh American, for the twenty minutes she was portraying this particular character, I believed she WAS this indigenous woman—a woman who had lost her sister tragically, suffered through unimaginable pain, and was confessing her story through song. I was bawling by about the second minute in.
Conversely, just listen to her sing "Glitter and Be Gay" and you'll be giggling about a second in, as the vapid, overdramatic rich lady in the song laughs and preens about her jewels and laments her perceived wrongs in a flamboyant way that leaves no doubt that she is, in fact, NOT in dire emotional straits. Cristina's comedic timing is AMAZING. "Glitter and Be Gay" is a piece that REALLY showcases her quirky side.
You can't know Cristina and NOT laugh about five seconds into a conversation with her. She'll say something scandalously inappropriate, or just plain ridiculous. Her humor is self-deprecating and most definitely infectious. I always feel like I can regress back to my childhood with her. She's been my partner in crime for SO many years, it's truly hard to know how to sum it all up, and any reader who's stuck around long enough knows I'm NOT succinct, so we could be here all day.
From tap dancing together to singing in multiple choirs to going to get our first guide dogs together, Cristina and I have just lived a whole lot of life. My wife Sarah and sister Leena even have the misfortune of having BOTH Cristina and I as housemates currently, lucky them. It's a misfortune because both of us together generally means a full blown freak show ... all the time.
Cristina is unendingly loyal. If you're lucky enough to be in her sphere and be one of her people, she will go the distance and then some for you. As a voice teacher (I've seen and experienced this first hand as I've taken voice lessons with her) she is kind, patient, accommodating, and again, hilarious and approachable. She puts her students at ease and fosters a low stakes laid back environment that appeals to people of all ages. Why do I sound like an infomercial trying to sell Cristina's skills? God, she really does bring out the worst in me. I can't even write a bio blurb about her right now ...
She has held me while I sobbed out my heartache and grief during difficult times, and even, on one memorable day, accompanied me to the emergency room when I injured my back. Her ridiculous antics had me laughing through my excruciating pain, which of course, exacerbated said pain, but also ultimately made me feel better.
She loves Christmas, and is solely responsible for the fact that our household begins to put up decorations and listen to Christmas music in OCTOBER. Her incredibly big, squishy yellow heart is as wide as the entire world.
I could go on, for pages and pages. I could tell you about silly sleepovers on a blow up air mattress in my mom's kitchen. I could tell you how, after my adopted grandma taught us to play Dominos, we promptly forgot the rules and made up our own. I could tell you about our chaotic Chess games that result in WAY more laughter than strategy since neither of us is very good at strategy games. Or maybe we could talk about the time we had our prosthetic eyes redone at the same time and took selfies with our newly fitted unpainted, blank, creepy eyes staring gleefully into my bemused mother's iPhone camera. I could tell you about our ridiculous made-up song, "The Muscle Man," (don't ask), which was born at around midnight in a virtually silent house in Bakersfield, where we were staying with another of our sisters, Lindsey. Or how about I show you the poem that we gleefully wrote in a fit of boredom my senior year of high school entitled "The Eradication of the Sighted." Said poem was printed by our English teacher and displayed on her bulletin board for the duration of the year. For the record, we are not sighted people haters, and no, you will NEVER see that poem on this page, because it is, in fact, ABSOLUTE nonsense, LOL. I could talk about our crazy adventures learning our home areas and the area around our high school together, when we thought a creepy stalker was following us home on the bus and it turned out to be our Orientation and Mobility instructor, making sure we were safe. I could wax poetic about the many duets we sang at high school assemblies, back before her big, bold, beautiful voice far outstripped my meager ability to sing and hold a candle to her, and also back before I was a virtual introverted recluse who wouldn't be caught DEAD singing in front of anyone now. The point is, there is FAR, FAR too much to tell. This ridiculous, effusive, kind, huge-hearted, generous, loving, supportive, multifaceted, unstoppable bovine sister of mine (she is affectionately known in our family as Moo, again, don't ask), belies description, really. But I'll get out of the way now and let her words speak for themselves. I'll also link a YouTube video of The Blind Soprano singing her blind little lungs out for your listening pleasure. Come join us at Tactile Rainbows to experience Cristina's INCREDIBLE charisma and stage presence live! It will be THE BEST ending to the night, EVER. Seriously, your mind will be blown listening to this girl sing! So come on down, grab a Zoom square and tune in! (Again with the infomercial! OMG, this is terrible)
Once again, details for Tactile Rainbows:
June 28th, from 6-8 PM Central, on Zoom. I'm asking for an early bird suggested donation of $5, which you can pay through Venmo @braillethrulife or Paypal amydiaz1118@gmail.com. After May 28th, the suggested donation will increase to $10, so hurry and sign up soon! Once I receive your donation, I'll send you a calendar invite with the Zoom link and all the details so you can buckle in for a fabulous evening of words, topped off with Cristina's dulcet tones as our grand finale. If price is a barrier, always feel free to reach out and we'll work something out! The open mic night is to celebrate pride, because, why else? And Cristina is an enthusiastic and passionate ally to the LGBTQ+ community.
And without further ado, I gladly cede the stage to Cristina! Thanks for reading these chaotic words about my chaotic sister!
Cheers!
Amelia
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Who I Am
I sing, I prance, I do dishes and clean various parts of the house while—you guessed it—singing and prancing. I'm a thirty-five-year-old woman who goes through life on six legs and a fluffy pair of yellow eyes named Bradford. When I'm not singing around the house to irritate all I live with, I'm bouncing anywhere and everywhere I can go to sing opera and portray epic stories set to gorgeous music. Whether I'm traveling or not, I love tearing through books of various genres, watching shows and movies that keep my mind company, and laughing and eating through life with my chosen family. Although I'm not a writer, I tell stories and love letting them rip through me in song. And I most definitely love consuming stories.